How to buy Spark Energy stock | 8.565

Spark Energy, Inc is an utilities—regulated electric business based in the US. Spark Energy shares (SPKE) are listed on the NASDAQ and all prices are listed in US Dollars. Spark Energy employs 164 staff and has a trailing 12-month revenue of around USD$688.5 million.

How to buy shares in Spark Energy

1. Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
2. Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
3. Search for Spark Energy. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: SPKE. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
4. Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until Spark Energy reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
5. Decide on how many to buy. At last close price of USD$8.565, weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of Spark Energy, depending on your broker.
6. Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of Spark Energy. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.

How has coronavirus impacted Spark Energy's share price?

Since the stock market crash in March caused by coronavirus, Spark Energy's share price has had significant negative movement.

Its last market close was USD$8.565, which is 15.86% down on its pre-crash value of USD$10.18 and 63.14% up on the lowest point reached during the March crash when the shares fell as low as USD$5.25.

If you had bought USD$1,000 worth of Spark Energy shares at the start of February 2020, those shares would have been worth USD$572.35 at the bottom of the March crash, and if you held on to them, then as of the last market close they'd be worth USD$904.46.

Spark Energy share price

Use our graph to track the performance of SPKE stocks over time.

Spark Energy shares at a glance

• Key figures

Information last updated 2020-10-16.

Latest market close	USD$8.565
52-week range	USD$5.25 - USD$11.47
50-day moving average	USD$8.6573
200-day moving average	USD$7.7198
Wall St. target price	USD$8
PE ratio	5.7595
Dividend yield	USD$0.72 (7.97%)
Earnings per share (TTM)	USD$1.584

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Is it a good time to buy Spark Energy stock?

The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.

Technical Analysis of Spark Energy, Inc by TradingView

This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.

Spark Energy price performance over time

Historical closes compared with the close of $8.565 from 2020-10-16

1 week (2020-10-16)	8.565
1 month (2020-09-25)	3.32%
3 months (2020-07-24)	14.35%
6 months (2020-04-24)	27.84%

1 year (2019-10-25)	-10.13%
2 years (2018-10-25)	6.13%
3 years (2017-10-25)	-38.05%
5 years (2015-10-23)	-47.71%

Is Spark Energy under- or over-valued?

Valuing Spark Energy stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of Spark Energy's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.

Spark Energy's P/E ratio

Spark Energy's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 6x. In other words, Spark Energy shares trade at around 6x recent earnings.

That's relatively low compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The low P/E ratio could mean that investors are pessimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're under-valued.

Spark Energy's EBITDA

Spark Energy's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is USD$109.2 million.

The EBITDA is a measure of a Spark Energy's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure a its profitability.

Spark Energy financials

Revenue TTM	USD$688.5 million
Operating margin TTM	13.42%
Gross profit TTM	USD$206.9 million
Return on assets TTM	15.01%
Return on equity TTM	47.39%
Profit margin	4.42%
Book value	$4.02
Market capitalisation	USD$322.8 million

TTM: trailing 12 months

Shorting Spark Energy shares

There are currently 1.7 million Spark Energy shares held short by investors – that's known as Spark Energy's "short interest". This figure is 1.5% down from 1.7 million last month.

There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting Spark Energy shares can be evaluated.

Spark Energy's "short interest ratio" (SIR)

Spark Energy's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of Spark Energy shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of Spark Energy shares traded daily (recently around 142144.40734558). Spark Energy's SIR currently stands at 11.98. In other words for every 100,000 Spark Energy shares traded daily on the market, roughly 11980 shares are currently held short.

However Spark Energy's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of Spark Energy shares, or, against the total number of tradable Spark Energy shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case Spark Energy's short interest could be expressed as 0.05% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 Spark Energy shares in existence, roughly 50 shares are currently held short) or 0.1427% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable Spark Energy shares, roughly 143 shares are currently held short).

A SIR above 10% would generally be considered pretty high, pointing to a potentially pessimistic outlook for the share price and a discouraging interest in betting against Spark Energy.

Find out more about how you can short Spark Energy stock.

Spark Energy share dividends

Dividend payout ratio: 60.42% of net profits

Recently Spark Energy has paid out, on average, around 60.42% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 7.97% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), Spark Energy shareholders could enjoy a 7.97% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In Spark Energy's case, that would currently equate to about $0.72 per share.

Spark Energy's payout ratio would broadly be considered high, and as such this stock could appeal to those looking to generate an income. Bear in mind however that companies should normally also look to re-invest a decent amount of net profits to ensure future growth.

Spark Energy's most recent dividend payout was on 15 September 2020. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 31 August 2020 (the "ex-dividend date").

Have Spark Energy's shares ever split?

Spark Energy's shares were split on a 2:1 basis on 19 June 2017. So if you had owned 1 share the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 2 shares. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your Spark Energy shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 50% lower share price could have impacted the market appetite for Spark Energy shares which in turn could have impacted Spark Energy's share price.

Spark Energy share price volatility

Over the last 12 months, Spark Energy's shares have ranged in value from as little as $5.25 up to $11.47. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".

Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NASDAQ average) beta is 1, while Spark Energy's is 0.7137. This would suggest that Spark Energy's shares are less volatile than average (for this exchange).

Spark Energy overview

Spark Energy, Inc., through its subsidiaries, operates as an independent retail energy services company in the United States. It operates through two segments, Retail Electricity and Retail Natural Gas. The company engages in the retail sales and distribution of electricity and natural gas to residential and commercial customers. As of December 31, 2019, it operated in 94 utility service territories across 19 states and the District of Columbia, and had approximately 672,000 residential customer equivalents. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Frequently asked questions

• What percentage of Spark Energy is owned by insiders or institutions?

  Currently 20.938% of Spark Energy shares are held by insiders and 72.394% by institutions.

• How many people work for Spark Energy?

  Latest data suggests 164 work at Spark Energy.

• When does the fiscal year end for Spark Energy?

  Spark Energy's fiscal year ends in December.

• Where is Spark Energy based?

  Spark Energy's address is: 12140 Wickchester Lane, Houston, TX, United States, 77079

• What is Spark Energy's ISIN number?

  Spark Energy's international securities identification number is: US8465111032

• What is Spark Energy's CUSIP number?

  Spark Energy's Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures number is: 846511103